1. Overview
Electronic messaging services have become critical to the efficient operation of business. These services have also become an indispensable tool for many individuals. As the importance of electronic messaging services has grown, so has the importance of providing these services in a reliable, robust and cost-effective manner. The markets in which the service providers provide these services have also become highly competitive, and this competitive environment exerts additional pressure on the service providers to continually improve electronic messaging services. Service providers see erosion in their existing subscriber base as competitive service providers continue to make it easier and attractive to migrate to their service offerings. An inability to change service offerings to keep pace with functional requirements causes additional erosion. In order to compete effectively and increase subscriber base, a service provider must endeavor to provide the highest possible level of sought-after services while simultaneously delivering those services at a reasonable price.
Electronic messaging service providers currently provide a plurality of specialized value-added services to both business and individual users. Although the earliest true electronic messaging can be traced back to 1844 and the advent of the first practical electric telegraph system; electronic messaging now principally includes messaging via e-mail, facsimile, interactive paging and voice communications systems, both wires and wireless. However, electronic messaging is by no means limited to these mediums. For example, various video mail solutions are becoming widely available. For example, Pacific Image Communications offers a home or small-office/home-office (SOHO) product, Super Voice® Videomail, that allows the attachment of a video and audio message to a standard e-mail message. (Super Voice® is a registered trademark of Pacific Image Communications, Inc.)
Also, videophones and video conferencing are now ubiquitous in large businesses. High-speed data lines, which were until recently limited to high-cost dedicated lines, have migrated to the home in the form of digital subscriber lines (xDSL) and cable-modems. This increase in available bandwidth enables a higher level of electronic messaging service content in the home, and in combination with readily available video communications equipment will expand the demand for video-based messaging services in the home as well.
Electronic messaging services beyond the basic sending, receiving and storing of messages differ somewhat depending on the medium in which the message is being transmitted. These services include, but are most certainly not limited to, message forwarding, automatic messages replies and message blocking. Despite a proliferation of available messaging services, some basic services are still lacking: 1) a robust and flexible means to determine the disposition of an electronic message once it has been received by a recipient's messaging system; and 2) a simple means of maintaining a dialog with the recipient via the recipient's messaging system subsequent to the initial creation and dispatching of a message. Also, although various media types have been integrated successfully within various messaging systems, a recipient has no level of assurance that the originator can receive a reply to the message.
II. Message Disposition
Most widely available e-mail systems adhere to Internet standards as set forth in the Requests for Comment (RFC). Generally, those systems that do not specifically adhere to the Internet standards, such as those systems which adhere to the International Telecommunications Union (ITU-T) X.400 standards, provide interfaces, which in turn provide Internet standards compatibility. Adherence to the Internet standards includes providing a means of status notification to the sender in the form of a message disposition notification (MDN). As those skilled in the art are sure to recognize, disposition in this sense is not limited to a final action taken on a message but rather includes any action directed to the message after successful delivery. Although e-mail systems adhering to the standards to provide DMN, the provision is subject to a variety of limitations. RFC 2298, the draft standard for MDN, defines a Multipurpose Internet Mail Extension (MIME) content-type that a messaging system uses to report the disposition of a message after successful delivery. The standard defines disposition events types, which include, but are not limited to, displayed, dispatched, deleted, denied and mailbox-terminated events. Dispatch of a message means to send the message to a destination; dispatch includes forwarding, replying and any other act, which would result in sending the message to a destination. When any of the disposition events occurs, an e-mail system adhering to the standard sends a disposition notification message to a mailbox specified by the original sender in the header of the original message.
Voicemail services and systems function within telecommunications networks, and modern telecommunications networks adhere to a common set of industry-specific standards. However, the actual feature sets included in voicemail and other value-added services are not the subject of these standards. Instead, the service providers and their suppliers are responsible for determining the feature set that they include in a particular service. The provision of status notification in voicemail services is even more limited than in e-mail systems. One exemplary voicemail service is the BellSouth® MemoryCall® service. MemoryCell® provides status notification in the from of a confirmation that a message has been accessed. When the recipient of the voicemail message accesses the message, a confirmation message is created and stored in the voicemail box of the originating caller. The Originating caller must be an existing subscriber to the MemoryCell® service, i.e., the voicemail box must be preexisting. (BellSouth® is a registered trademark of BellSouth Intellectual Property Corporation. MemoryCall® is a registered service mark of BellSouth Corporation.)
E-mail and voicemail systems are subject to a number of limitations in the provision of message disposition notification. First, in an e-mail messaging system adhering to RFC 2298, the recipient of the disposition notification must be identified as an attribute in the header of the original message (Disposition-Notification-To). The attribute must specify a valid mailbox to which a disposition is subsequently sent. The mailbox refers to another e-mail address; the sender cannot specify varying mediums within which to reply. Also, as stated above, to utilize voicemail confirmation in the MemoryCall® service, the caller must also be an existing subscriber of the service, i.e., the caller must have a predefined relationship with the voicemail system. Since the telecommunication service provider generally provides this type of service, this requirement limits the availability of this feature to those callers living or working within in a specific region, or perhaps, even within a specific community. Once again, the recipient cannot specify an alternate medium within which to send the confirmation.
Another limitation of current electronic messaging systems is that they identify a message in a disposition notification or confirmation only by attributes of the message such as the recipient, the data created and perhaps a portion of the message. It can be quite difficult for a sender or caller to associate the disposition notification with the correct message. For instance, if a sender or caller using one of these services sends a particular recipient multiple messages on the same day, it is very difficult for the sender to determine to which message the disposition notification applies.
Some of the limitations on disposition notification apply primarily to a specific medium. For example, a limitation of current e-mail systems is that a disposition notification message must be sent for each disposition of the message. Depending on the requirements of the sender, many of the disposition messages provided will be at least valueless and at worst distracting and irritating.
A limitation peculiar to voicemail systems is the inability to monitor a range of disposition event types when the recipient accesses the message. A caller may wish to known whether or not the recipient deleted a message without listening to it, forwarded the message to another party, or if the recipient was deleted from the voicemail system without ever having accessed the message. This information is unavailable in current voicemail services.
III. Dialog
Voicemail systems allow a recipient of a message to respond to the message by various means. If the original caller is a subscriber to the same voicemail service as the recipient, the recipient may have the option of responding directly to the message in the form of a voicemail message, which is then stored in the original caller's voicemail. The recipient also may have the option to automatically place a direct call to the original caller either utilizing the voicemail service or by using an additional service, such as caller-ID.
Although the recipient of a voicemail message generally has the means to respond to a message, the ability to respond and maintain a dialog via voicemail is limited. In current voicemail systems, the subscriber may reply in the form of a voicemail message to the original caller only if the original caller is also a subscriber to the voicemail service. If the original caller is not a subscriber, the recipient may be able to place a direct call utilizing a service, such as caller-ID, and leave a voicemail message. However, the voicemail service itself is not facilitating the dialog; the dialog depends on the existence of at least two additional services: caller-ID and the original caller's voicemail service.